


A Guy Like You in a Place Like This

by anselm0



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Blanket Permission, First Time Blow Jobs, M/M, Pre-Canon, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:48:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25680838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anselm0/pseuds/anselm0
Summary: The day he got drafted, Starsky didn’t know where Vietnam was.
Relationships: Ken Hutchinson/David Starsky
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33





	A Guy Like You in a Place Like This

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly edited from first publication in the 2019 SHareCon Zine.
> 
> Thanks to cyanne for beta reading!

The day he got drafted, Starsky didn’t know where Vietnam was. He knew it was in Asia and it was hot there, but that was all. The draft board didn’t tell him, just that his physical results meant he should expect to get orders in the mail soon. They didn’t say why any of them had to go to Vietnam, either, why it mattered at all to him or to the draft board what people were doing in their own country on the other side of the world. He couldn’t believe that he was expected to kill or be killed for a war that didn’t even have the common courtesy to tell him what was happening.

He went to basic training at the same time as Ricky, one of his best friends from the neighborhood; their other buddy, Tommy, got a medical exemption for his polio. Starsky and Ricky were both twenty-three when the war really got going in the summer of 1965 and they both got snapped up by the draft board before Thanksgiving. Before, they had been given deferments from the draft because Starsky’s father was dead and Ricky’s parents were both disabled, but now the Army needed more bodies.

“We ain’t their sons, they don’t care if we die,” Ricky said bitterly. “They figure there’ll always be more kids from neighborhoods like ours to keep the factories and the war both running while they keep making money.”

Starsky was numb all through the months of basic training at Fort Polk. He had packed carefully as if he was moving to Louisiana for good. He even bought a new hairbrush since his old one was losing its bristles, but they just made him shave his head as soon as he arrived. He should have thought of that before he spent the money. It was his first time west of the Mississippi River or south of Virginia, and it was odd to think that he was hundreds of miles from the Atlantic Ocean now. None of it seemed real, even though the drill sergeant told them they were real Chinese uniforms put on the dummies for target shooting and bayonet practice. The Chinese uniforms were from the 1950s and they didn’t use North Vietnamese uniforms, someone said, because now they all wore olive green uniforms just like theirs.

The first thing he missed, after his mom’s Sunday roast, was privacy. They weren’t allowed to go anywhere alone during basic training, only with a partner like they were in preschool again. Usually Ricky could be his battle buddy, but sometimes he ended up partnered with random guys he barely knew and had no opportunity to get to know. Besides the fact they had little free time, and everybody used that to write home or nap, the other soldiers were hard to tell apart. They were all wearing the same buzzcut from the same base barber shop, all of them young, unmarried, and anxious, either from fear or excitement. The worst were the guys who had chosen to be in the make-believe war zone on their way to the real one rather than in college, the enlistees who couldn’t wait to write home that they had killed a real Commie. Starsky didn’t plan on telling his mom anything about the war if he could help it. He definitely wouldn’t tell her if he had to kill somebody.

He and Ricky shipped out together, not yet knowing their final assignments but hopeful because neither of them had gotten special weapons training. It was two days flying through San Francisco, Alaska, and Japan before they got to Vietnam. Louisiana had been pretty warm for the time of year, but it was unbelievably hot in Vietnam. The humidity hit him like walking into a sea of pea soup as soon as Starsky got off the plane.

Through the crush of hundreds of guys in uniforms still dark with how new they were, Starsky managed to stick with Ricky onto the bus that would take them to the big base in Long Binh. There they would get sorted out into their different unit assignments.

Ricky sat at the window, watching the airfield as they pulled away. “Where do you think they’re hiding all the wounded that are going back on those planes?”

“I thought they go back on the ships.” That was something their drill sergeant back at basic had mentioned; get seriously wounded and the Army would hand you off to the Navy for a long cruise back to Hawaii. On the hospital ships, he had said, you got ice cream every day.

“So they just fly them back empty?” Ricky snorted. “Actually, I wouldn’t put it past them.”

It was May and they had near eighteen months of service to get through. After three days of milling around Long Binh, which was so big it had its own bus service, he and Ricky got their assignment: infantry at Camp Radcliff, named after the guy unlucky enough to be the first combat death in 1st Cavalry Division. They would be base support, not front-line troops. That was good for their prospects of survival, though more than a few guys were disappointed and embarrassed to be “rear echelon motherfuckers” instead of real soldiers headed for a blaze of glory.

They ended up in different platoons, with Ricky getting more typical soldier duties, running patrols on the perimeter of the huge camp and guarding the airfield. Starsky’s platoon had supply detail, doing inventory and driving trucks around the clock between the airfield and the various posts they needed to get to in camp and around the countryside when it was safe enough for ground transport. It wasn’t anywhere near as dangerous as combat, but his CO warned that saboteurs would try to cut the lines wherever and whenever they could, and “cutting supply lines” was code for mining the roads or killing the drivers. “There’s a reason drivers get guns and helmets, same as everybody else,” Wilson told him. “Not that you’re likely to use them, or if you do, that they’ll do you much good.”

Starsky liked Lieutenant Wilson well enough. You had to respect honesty like that. Ricky, on the other hand, did not care for his own CO. They ate together in the big mess hall when their schedules lined up and Starsky never heard the end of Ricky’s mistrust and disdain for the lieutenant he was under.

“He had a deferment for medical school and dropped out to enlist, can you fucking believe it?”

Starsky could conjure an image of the kind of guy Ricky was talking about. “Sounds like a real bastard.”

“He’s already been here months. Must have dropped everything as soon as they said the Commies attacked.” Ricky glanced around, and Starsky knew he was checking to make sure nobody was paying them any attention. It was a shifty habit he’d always had, but it had gotten worse since he became a soldier.

Shrugging, Ricky tucked into his dinner. “But it could be worse, I guess. He’s not one of the really crazy ones, seeing the Viet Cong in every shadow. He’s not trying to make general. Still, you can’t trust a man who’d sign up for this shit.”

* * *

From Starsky’s perspective, his Vietnam experience was exceedingly dull as far as war stories went. The roads were bad, the food was bad, and every day, there was a low hum of paranoia that day would be the day Viet Cong operatives would find a way to blow them all up. If not them, the monotony would kill him.

Two guys in Ricky’s squad had been rotated out after they got lost in the jungle during a spot check and another patrol had fired on them in the dark. Ricky had lain low, but his two buddies would be spending a couple weeks of their tours in a hospital farther south. Their replacements were fresh greenies from out west, one an enlistee who had probably thought he could get into officers’ school with his daddy’s connections. To his disappointment and Ricky’s great surprise, even the Army drew the line at that level of stupid and he would be a bitter, lowly private for four long years.

After four months, Starsky got promoted from private to corporal, for no reason he could figure. Maybe Lieutenant Wilson just liked him well enough, too. Being a corporal made him responsible for more than just his own work, which wasn’t bad, since the other guys were pretty good about doing their jobs. Nobody wanted to get in trouble and get reassigned to the front. Those guys still got called cannon fodder, even though nobody was using cannons anymore now that they could just drop bombs from airplanes. Sometimes, you could hear the bombardment in the distance, like thunder in the mountains while the sun shone.

Most of the time, though, it was easy to forget there was a war on beyond the borders of Camp Radcliff.

Starsky wrote home to his mom and his brother Nicky, but not as often as he should. What was he supposed to tell them after reporting on the weather? The body count of North Vietnamese killed in the 1st Cavalry’s latest campaign? The number of Americans the other side had killed? The movies he got to see for free every night if he wanted, and new releases only a few days or weeks after they came out back home? The unbelievable number of vehicles the Army had dropped on the other side of the world, the millions of gallons of gas and jet fuel and cheap alcohol they kept flowing, the fortune poured out to level the terrain and build this base that was basically a whole town with stores and bars and a rec center with a pool in the highlands of Vietnam while Nick’s high school didn’t have hot water half the time? More than not wanting them to worry about him, Starsky was ashamed of how easy and comfortable his tour of duty was. He was getting combat pay for being a delivery man.

Ricky wrote home every week like clockwork, taking care of his little sisters and their ailing parents as best he could long distance while he and his brother were both away. On Ricky’s advice, his little brother Carlos had enlisted in the Navy as soon as he got out of high school to avoid getting drafted to the front. Ricky wrote him, too, at his posting on a research vessel in the Mediterranean, chastising him to thank his lucky stars for every day of boredom in a quiet part of the world.

When the day came that the supply lines got cut as Wilson had warned they might, Starsky would write home only that he had gotten promoted again. He wouldn’t say it was because the last guy was dead, only that on a sergeant’s pay, he would be able to send a bit more money home each month.

Despite his drill sergeant’s best efforts, this was the first time he had really thought of the North Vietnamese as the enemy, as _his_ enemy. They had been an abstraction, but now, they were the people who had dragged his friends out of their truck in the middle of the night, executed them at the side of the road, and burned their bodies beyond recognition. He hated them. He hoped they would try to ambush him on his next supply run into Binh Dinh so he could return the favor.

Brimming with anger and useless energy, Starsky had to get outside. He wanted revenge, nearly enough to get a gun and go out into the jungle that everybody said was still full of Viet Cong, despite the Army’s repeated best efforts to drive them out. If he was there, Ricky would have gone with him, or at least come up with some other way of getting revenge. As much as he was disgusted with the Army, Ricky took loyalty seriously, and he was loyal to Starsky and to all the other poor bastards out here on the edge of a knife together. But he wasn’t reckless enough to go alone and Ricky was on duty, so Starsky strode aimlessly through the camp. The curious looks he was getting made him duck into the alley between the backs of two rows of buildings. There were fewer people hanging about, but it was still wide open, nothing like the narrow alleys back home.

“God dammit.” There weren’t even rocks to kick. “Fuck!”

“You alright, Corporal?”

It was that weirdo lieutenant of Ricky’s, the ex-medical student. Though he heard about him all the time from Ricky, Starsky had only seen Lieutenant Hutchinson from a distance before. He was easy to spot, an absolute beanpole of a man in a neat, regulation-perfect uniform. Up close, he had sweat stains on his shirt like everyone else and blue eyes.

“Mind you own business, blondie.”

Hutchinson looked taken aback, but he shrugged and turned to go. “Suit yourself.”

The anger welled up and burst out of him. “Hey! Wait up a minute, Louie.” If he couldn’t find the enemy, he could at least hassle one of the bastards who should have died instead of guys who never wanted to be here in the first place. Starsky bared his teeth in a mean grin. “I’m curious. How’s the war for you? Is it everything you hoped it’d be?”

“Look, sorry to bother you.”

“Were you disappointed you didn’t get combat, didn’t get to play Captain America? Don’t worry about it, blondie, you can die just as easily back here.”

Hutchinson’s gaze sharpened. “One of your buddies get killed? I’m sorry, man.”

“Fuck you.” Starsky wanted to punch him. His hands were curled into fists at his sides. “Don’t act like you know me. Fuck you!”

Hutchinson just looked at him until Starsky couldn’t take it anymore and ran.

* * *

Maybe because of that encounter, Starsky’s rage blew over and left behind an exhausted sorrow. The whole war was unfair. Of course it was going to rob him like this, as it did everybody else. His loss wasn’t special, nor was his grief.

Ricky bullied him into eating something at dinner, though Starsky didn’t feel hungry. He couldn’t sleep, so Starsky slipped out of the barracks. It was the middle of the night in January but still 70º according to the thermometer on the wall of the PX. It felt like a sticky summer night back home. The monsoon rains would probably come later.

Having had nothing better to do the past seven months, Starsky had picked up a smoking habit. It was an easy way to strike up a conversation and get to know someone, and it was a nice change of pace to inhale dry smoke instead of the humid air. He smoked two cigarettes down to the filter as he walked that night, flicking the butts away into the dark. It was much quieter with the choppers grounded, though the rumor was the Army was trying to develop lights for the gunships that would let them keep hunting around the clock. On base, there were streetlights and shop lights casting yellow puddles and attracting bugs, like there would be in any town back home. In the war movies, they always had to keep the lights off at night to avoid giving a target to the enemy. Apparently, the Army wasn’t worried about North Vietnamese forces reaching the heart of a post like this.

He turned a corner and Lieutenant Hutchinson was sitting on a stack of tires under a streetlight, reading a book. Starsky didn’t believe in much but he wasn’t about to ignore a sign like that, even if he’d rather pull out his own teeth than confront him again. The decision was made for him anyway, when Hutchinson glanced up and startled at seeing him standing there.

“’Scuse me. Hi,” Starsky had to restrain himself from awkwardly waving.

“Hi,” Hutchinson said bemusedly.

“Listen, I wanted to say I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m not going to report you.”

“Well, thanks,” Starsky said, flummoxed that he hadn’t even thought of that possibility. Picking a fight with an officer had been seriously stupid. “But I’m serious. It was out of line. I mean, personally, not because of—”

He gestured at the stripes on his uniform sleeve, which he was not wearing at the moment. “You know.”

“Oh. Well, personally, it’s still alright.” Hutchinson closed his book, _From Here to Eternity_. Starsky had seen the movie and didn’t remember much about it except the sex scene on the beach. It probably wasn’t as much fun without the visuals.

“I heard about what happened. I would have been angry at me, too.”

“You don’t have to be nice about it,” Starsky said, annoyed. Hutchinson was making it hard to feel remotely justified in lashing out at him.

“Sorry.” Hutchinson watched him light another cigarette. Grudgingly generous, Starsky offered him the pack. “No, thanks. Those things can kill you, you know?”

Starsky cast him an incredulous look.

“Ah,” Hutchinson grimaced at his poorly timed comment. “I just meant they’re not good for your health. Smokers’ lungs are almost as bad as coal miners’. I was in medical school,” he added lamely.

Starsky snorted, but took pity on him. “No offense, but I’ll worry about that when I’m discharged.”

“Fair enough,” Hutchinson agreed, then quickly asked like he didn’t want the conversation to end, “You’re friends with Vasquez, right? You on the same tour as him?”

“Yeah, me and Ricky are in it together, same as when we were kids.”

“Me, too. I mean, on the same tour.”

Starsky took a long drag, suspicious why Hutchinson would lie. “How’s that work out? Enlistment’s four years.”

Clearly having been asked this before, Hutchinson laughed self-consciously. “Yeah, I didn’t enlist. I just—left school knowing I would get drafted. Figured I should do my part. And ROTC was mandatory when I was in school, so they made me an officer.” He plucked at the bar on his collar to demonstrate.

Starsky stared for a moment, then barked out a laugh. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re crazy, blondie.”

A grin flickered across his face. “I’ve heard that.”

Something big fluttered in the light and Hutchinson jumped off the tires; they’d been warned about rabid bats. It wasn’t a bat, but a huge moth that joined the other bugs butting against the light, large enough they could hear its body hitting the glass. Shuddering, Starsky hurriedly ground out his cigarette in case it attracted something crawly.

“It’s like a freakin’ _Adventure Comic_ out here,” he complained. “I found a spider the other day, size of my hand! Crawling up the wall in the PX stock room. Nearly killed myself getting away from it.”

“Have you seen the giant centipedes?” Hutchinson held his hands apart to indicate the length, a horrifying distance. “I saw one on a midnight shift, inch-long bright orange legs, fast as anything when it ran away.”

“And the snakes and ants and leeches—yeugh!” His whole body itched just thinking about it. “No wonder the combat guys hate us. It’s bad enough indoors. If I had to sleep out on the ground every night, I’d hate anybody who didn’t.”

About the first thing any greenie learned was to stay out of the way of the combat troops. They didn’t appreciate anything from the pampered rear echelon, who were getting the same pay for nothing like the same work. Starsky didn’t blame them one bit for the grudge they held, though he didn’t go so far as to sun bleach his uniform to try to pass as one of them like some guys did.

“What you asked me earlier,” Hutchinson said suddenly, like he couldn’t hold the words in. “I _was_ disappointed when I didn’t get combat. For a second, I _did_ want to be Captain America. But that was just stupidity, plain and simple. I don’t think I could do it. Not because of the bugs or even the danger of dying. Just—I don’t want to kill anybody. I don’t want to be a part of any of this.”

He waved at the camp around them, an American town forcibly implanted in the highlands of Vietnam. The jungle tried to grow back over it and the soldiers cut it back in an unending battle for territorial control. Ricky joked that it was only a matter a time before the Army declared the creeping vines enemy combatants and repurposed the defoliants they used to try to flush out the Viet Cong to do their landscaping. Those two missions seemed to be held in equal importance. It wasn’t visible in the dark but they both knew exactly where there was a 1st Cavalry insignia set into the mountain overlooking Camp Radcliff, matching the one on Hutchinson’s sleeve and Starsky’s, back in his footlocker. When Starsky had first seen it on the ridge, it reminded him of the Hollywood sign, a beacon for the combat troops to find their way back to home base. Soon, he had realized it was a brand of ownership. Around here, everything and everyone belonged to the Army, whether they wanted to or not.

“Okay. So why are you here?”

Hutchinson looked up at the stars peeking between the cloud cover and sighed. “I missed ROTC. I missed being on a team. It was selfish. I wanted to be a doctor because I want to help people, but I didn’t want to work alone.” Smiling wanly, he shrugged. “Stupid, huh?”

“It’s really stupid,” Starsky said frankly, because he could not fathom choosing to be owned like the military owned you for any reason. Hutchinson didn’t seem offended, but he felt compelled to admit, “But I get what you mean. It’s nice being on a team. That part’s not bad. I just wish any of this felt like it was helping anything. Like if we were here to dig wells or build roads or something, I wouldn’t mind having to be here.”

“Right. Yeah, that’s it exactly.” Hutchinson looked wonderingly at him. Feeling guilty all over again for being mean earlier, Starsky looked away.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to put all that on you.”

“It’s fine.” His arm knocked against Hutchinson’s; Starsky hadn’t realized they were standing so close. “I feel the same way, you know? Maybe a lot of guys do.”

Hutchinson chuckled. “I don’t think so, but thanks, Corporal.”

“Actually, my lieutenant says I’m getting promoted tomorrow. Because of—” He fumbled for another cigarette. “Anyway, just Starsky’s fine.”

“Ken Hutchinson. Normally I’d say congratulations but under the circumstances,” he trailed off, then put his hand briefly on Starsky’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Normally, he wouldn’t take that kind of condescending treatment from a guy who looked so baby-faced Starsky doubted he needed to shave, but Hutchinson sounded sincere. He looked sincere, too, intensely focused on Starsky in a way that should feel invasive but didn’t. He seemed the kind of earnest that Starsky had always liked, but especially appreciated now. No wonder Ricky, who never trusted such appearances, still couldn’t bring himself to like Hutchinson. Starsky couldn’t look away.

Not knowing what to say, Starsky knocked his arm against Hutchinson’s, on purpose this time, and quirked a smile. Hutchinson grinned back. The moment stretched out until they both glanced away.

Hutchinson cleared his throat. “If you’re still offering, I’ll take a smoke now.”

“You sure? I hear those things can kill you.”

“Just give me a cigarette.”

Obnoxiously deliberate, Starsky pulled out his pack and fished one out. “I’d have thought someone on officer’s pay could afford his own cigarettes.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Hutchinson took it and gestured impatiently for the lighter. His fingers were surprisingly cool to the touch. “I’ll buy you a new pack tomorrow.”

“What will the guys think? One day a pack of smokes, what’s next? Diamonds?”

It came out flirtier than Starsky had intended. He hoped Hutchinson hadn’t heard it.

“No,” Hutchinson said slowly, looking askance at him. He looked down at the smoke curling off his cigarette for a moment, then handed back the lighter. “Pearls’d suit you better.”

Starsky froze with the lighter in his outstretched hand, staring. Hutchinson smirked at him around his cigarette.

“Oh, you think you’re funny.”

“I’m hilarious.”

Starsky laughed, even though he didn’t want to encourage that misunderstanding; _he_ was always the funny friend. “Sure, Hutch, you’re real funny.”

They smoked and talked and watched the moths fluttering around the light. Starsky could hear the thunder and smell the rain coming down from the northwest, but they stayed there together until it hit. After all, there wasn’t much difference between the humidity and the warm mist that came before the downpour.

* * *

The worst part of Vietnam, at least for guys like him, was that sometimes it was really beautiful. Starsky had seen more plants and flowers and birds and creepily rainbow-colored insects in a year than he had in his whole life. There were palm trees like in movies about World War II battles in the Pacific, except they were in color, a dark, rich green Starsky could hardly believe was real. When the clouds came in over the distant mountains, they spilled over the ridges like smoke from dry ice, and the way the rain seemed to drift over them reminded him of the pale, gauzy layers of the skirt his prom date had worn. Even the sound of the bugs buzzing in the early morning fog was lovely, in a way.

It was incredible, and Starsky felt guilty every time he noticed it. 

* * *

She hadn’t told him before, his mother wrote in June, but Nicky had been suspended for graffitiing anti-war slogans on school walls. Now he had graduated, she thought he was doing it around town; would Starsky please get him to knock it off before he got arrested?

Tommy wrote he had started dating Linda Forcelli and her cousin Frank was in the 1st Cavalry’s engineer battalion, did they know him?

Ricky’s baby sister had graduated high school and gotten married within a month.

“It’s only six months ‘til I get out and they can’t wait?” Ricky scoffed. “She’s definitely knocked up.”

“Who’s the guy?”

“Wallace Montgomery.”

“Wait, like Wally, Chrissy Montgomery’s kid brother?” Starsky whistled. “Geez, that makes me feel old. I dated her back in high school, sent him to the movies all the time,” he explained for Hutch’s benefit. Their duty rosters lined up so they could all eat dinner together on most weeknights. Ricky had been reluctant, but he and Hutch got on well enough as long as politics or the war didn’t come up; Ricky’s fiery cynicism and Hutch’s bleak optimism clashed horribly.

“She pretty?” Hutch asked, mildly interested. He didn’t often have much news from home to share at the table because didn’t get many letters from home, only from his older sister filling him in about her husband’s job and the baby’s new words every month or two. If he ever heard from his parents, he hadn’t mentioned it. Starsky got the impression his family wasn’t tight-knit.

As an answer to his question, Starsky sketched Chrissy’s figure in the air with his hands. In truth, Starsky remembered the way her face had scrunched up when she laughed at his jokes better.

Ricky blinked his way out of the scowl over his sister’s hasty wedding. “Isn’t Chrissy married to Jack Horowitz now?”

Starsky groaned theatrically. He didn’t actually mind anymore that Chrissy had dumped him, but Ricky loved to tease him about it.

Ricky leaned toward Hutch conspiratorially. “She has a real specific type, see, Louie? Before Dave, she went with Al Hoffman. After high school, she worked in the city and rumor is she—ow!” He rubbed the back of his head and scowled at Starsky. “Fine! _Anyway_ , she comes back to the neighborhood and marries Jack Horowitz, this kid who was two years behind us all in high school. Guess he finally hit his growth spurt in pharmacy school.”

Hutch waited for more and when Ricky didn’t add anything, he shrugged. “Okay?”

“You don’t get it? They’re all Jews!”

“Jesus Christ, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Starsky yelped, mortified by the attention Ricky’s raised voiced drew. A couple Marines at the next table looked ready to start a fight.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” After mollifying the crowd, Ricky rubbed the back of Starsky’s ducked head in apology. “But come on! Who needs it spelled out like that?”

Hutch coughed, his ears and neck flaming red. “Well, I didn’t want to, ah, assume.”

“Come on!” Ricky repeated, flapping his hand towards Starsky’s face in exasperation. “They don’t have Jews in Minnesota or something?”

Starsky smacked him upside the head again. “You’re just jealous because she wouldn’t go to the sophomore dance with you, or homecoming junior year.”

“Shut up,” Ricky sulked. “Don’t remind me how you poached a girl you knew I was into!”

“It’s a shame,” Hutch interjected, recovered enough to rejoin the conversation. His flush hadn’t fully faded but he had on an innocent expression Starsky had learned was a sure sign he was about to make a joke. “You might have to see her around more now she and your sister are related.”

This didn’t seem to have occurred to Ricky yet. He swore under his breath, opening his letter back up as if to check that he had the name right. “Oh, man, Chrissy Montgomery is my sister’s sister-in-law.”

Winking at Hutch, Starsky threw an arm around Ricky. “Cheer up. Maybe Mrs. Horowitz will dance with her brother-in-law at the reunions.”

On a day like that, if none of the combat troops were passing through Camp Radcliff, if nobody he knew had died, the war seemed far away. And nearly every day was like that. He met up with friends after work, and there were bars and a bowling alley and a cinema where they could go to hang out. They were never hungry, never short on rent money, and rarely more bored than they would have been back home. Every six weeks, they got two days in Long Binh for R&R, though Hutch had not changed his rotation to match theirs, despite Starsky promising he wouldn’t be intruding on his time with Ricky. Long Binh had even more to do than Camp Radcliff and Ricky was his best friend, but Starsky found himself looking forward to getting back and seeing Hutch again. He couldn’t feel guilty about being grateful that the draft meant he got to spend so much time with Ricky or meet Hutch, he reasoned, since the Army was all about brothers in arms. It wasn’t his fault that he could practically enjoy his service while other guys died, just the luck of the draw.

Starsky agreed with Nick’s opposition to the war, he really did, but he was pretty sure Nick’s opinion was better informed than his. At least it was far less complicated.

* * *

There were only two and a half months left on their draft service, right around when the recruiters started really pressing them to sign up for another tour, when Ricky got a medical discharge.

Hutch found Starsky by the dog kennels. They were sniffer dogs, intended to help combat units find enemy combatants in the jungle, but they didn’t do well in the heat and humidity. Nobody liked the idea of putting them down, so all the bases seemed to have at least a few dogs hanging around. Starsky liked to visit them in the morning before his shift started, while they were still willing to play fetch. Later, he thought he should have known that something was wrong when Hutch jogged to meet him instead of walking.

“Starsk, Ricky’s in the hospital. It’s alright, he’s okay!” Hutch caught him by the arms as Starsky all but collapsed in relief. “It was just a snake bite. They have an antidote, he should be just fine.”

It had happened early in the morning on the south side of Camp Radcliffe. As a precaution, the perimeter patrols had been increased during the campaign to the west in Dak To, at the border with Laos and Cambodia. At least Ricky hadn’t gotten hit by the snipers and guerilla strike teams the brass had warned might try their luck at drawing resources away from the main fighting.

But a snake was bad enough; it had chewed up Ricky’s forearm before his partner on the patrol could get it off and kill it. Dixon had gotten a few scrapes on his knuckles that made him sleepy and mealy-mouthed, but otherwise had not shown any ill effects. The snake’s venom was all used up when it got to Dixon. Ricky had been shaking with pain and was not able to lift his head or control his left arm and leg’s spastic jerks by the time they got him to the doctors. They couldn’t put Ricky on morphine until the antivenin dose was right and they could take off his bandages without his pain getting worse. They’d tried twice before Starsky got there and had to put them back on both times.

There wasn’t much Starsky could do but hold Ricky’s hand, and even that he couldn’t do for long. “I have to go soon. I’m late already, I’m supposed to be on duty.” Ricky looked like he would be cursing him out or begging him not to go if he wasn’t breathless with the pain and nausea. “I’m the ranking officer, I can’t—I’ll be back as soon as I can. You’re going to be fine, I promise. Right?”

The duty nurse was busy taking another shot at slowly removing the bandage, so his reassurances were absent-minded. Hutch guided Starsky away, promising someone would stay with Ricky. “I’ll make sure he’s not alone, okay? Me or Dixon will be here until you get back.”

As soon as they were outside, Starsky couldn’t keep from asking the frightening question, “Is he really going to be okay?”

Hutch took him by the shoulders. “You know that’s not a promise I can make. But he’s in the best place he can be, he’s being taken care of, and that’s true no matter who stays with him, okay?”

Helplessly, Starsky nodded and put his head down against Hutch’s chest. Hutch hugged him without hesitation, pulling him closer and gripping the back of his neck until Starsky absolutely had to leave. A while later, Starsky would wonder if Hutch had kissed the top of his head. It should have been odd, but it was comforting. Starsky was grateful for that touch as he worked the longest, most anxious shift of his life.

Ricky was still alive when Starsky finished his duty shift. There was some tissue death around the bites that would need to be removed surgically, but Ricky was resting easier on morphine and the prognosis was good.

“Fifteen months in Vietnam and I get done by a fucking snake,” Ricky groused, morphine making him talk slow and dreamy.

“Hey, count your blessings, man.” Dixon said from the chair where he’d kept vigil since Hutch had had to leave. “Could have been a landmine.”

“Don’t even say that.” Starsky tried to find a happier subject. “Think they’ll send you home for this?”

“Yeah,” Ricky blinked up at the ceiling, eyes going bright with tears. “Yeah, they said maybe my hand won’t work right. Or they might have to take my arm. Got to send me home if I only got one arm, huh?”

“Don’t talk like that. That isn’t going to happen to you.” Starsky paused in stroking Ricky’s hair off his sweaty forehead to give his head a little shake. “They’re going to fix it and you’re going to be writing me postcards from Hawaii about all the flavors of ice cream the Navy has on their ships. I bet they even have strawberry cream.”

Ricky went into surgery, and Starsky wished he had said something more like “So what? You’ll still be alive with one arm, and it’s just your left one if it does come to that.” But in the end, after two surgeries, Ricky didn’t lose the arm, just some function in his fingers and wrist from the dead muscle they’d removed. He took it pretty well, considering what he’d gone under dreading might happen, and he was happy to be going home as soon as he was cleared for transport.

“Be careful, alright, Dave? You’ve only got a couple months to go. Just don’t go signing up again and you’ll be back in New York in no time.”

* * *

When Starsky really started thinking about what he would do after his military service ended, he couldn’t muster up a lot of enthusiasm for the life he’d been living in New York. He hadn’t cared about his job, hadn’t had much to look forward to except hanging out with Ricky and Tommy, sporadic dates, and Sunday roasts at his mother’s house. It hadn’t been a bad life, but for all that the war hadn’t been so terrible for him, it was hard to imagine going back, finding a new apartment and getting another boring, menial job that didn’t pay enough.

Mostly, though, Starsky couldn’t imagine going back to a life where he didn’t see Hutch every day. Even before Ricky had gotten out, Hutch had become a fixed point in Starsky’s universe. He was just so steady, so dependably there to laugh at his jokes or give advice or tease him or comfort him. He was like that with everybody, and it made him a good lieutenant, but Starsky was pretty sure Hutch was just a little bit extra like that with him. They touched probably more than grown men should. Starsky had always been overly touchy with his friends, but Hutch was the first person to reach out just as readily. Being with him, Starsky could be himself, yet also felt more like he was actually grown up instead of doing his best impression of being grown up.

It was stupid, of course. He hadn’t known Hutch all that long. They hadn’t been through hell together like the guys in war stories who came out the other side as something more than regular friends. They were just two people who had met under unusual circumstances and happened to click. If they had met some other way back home, they might not even get along so well or be as inseparable as they were in Vietnam. Maybe they wouldn’t stay that way or even stay in touch once they got discharged.

Starsky didn’t like to think about that.

“What are you going to do when you get back?” he asked Hutch. “Go back to med school?”

Hutch blew out some smoke and pensively watched it drift away. He didn’t smoke much but if Starsky did, he’d have a cigarette and take a few drags before it burned down to the filter in his hand. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t even know if I’m going back to Minnesota.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Shrugging, Hutch didn’t elaborate on why. “Not sure where I’d go instead but I’m not real picky.”

Starsky rolled his eyes. Usually he was fine going with the flow, but Hutch could be a real stickler when he wanted. “Well, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe—” Looking away, Hutch cut himself off. “I don’t know. What are you going to do?”

Fiddling with his dog tags, Starsky admitted, “I don’t know either. It’s stupid, huh? All this time I’ve been waiting to get out and now that it’s happening soon, I’m going to miss it. I mean, not miss this. It’s way too hot and the Army’s not great and if I never see another moth the size of my face again, it’ll be too soon but, you know. I’ll miss some things.” He nudged Hutch’s foot with his. “I’ll miss seeing your pretty face, blondie.”

“Well, I still owe you some pearls, don’t I? Maybe I’ll have to visit you in New York.”

Hutch had already given him a pearl, a fairly large, slightly lumpy one he’d gotten in Saigon as a joke. It was in its little drawstring bag, deep in Starsky’s footlocker with his photos from home hidden from the bleaching sunlight and the hairbrush that he still hadn’t used because the Army had issued him a comb and the humidity made it all wasted effort anyway. Starsky didn’t know what he was going to do with a single loose pearl. He certainly couldn’t wear it, but he liked having it all the same. He liked the idea of Hutch giving him more of them.

“Sure,” he said, as lightly as he could manage. “You can stay on my mom’s couch.”

“Oh, I see. So I only rate a couch with you.” But Hutch nudged his foot back and they shared a smile.

They were sprawled out in the shade of a camouflage net Hutch had strung up between a storage shed and a large, spiny bush that had escaped the landscapers. Starsky had contributed the seats, scrounged from broken down vehicles the motor pool had decided weren’t worth fixing since the Army was always willing to ship in a dozen new ones. It reminded Starsky of the setup they had on the roof of Tommy’s building, with a big beach umbrella and broken down lawn chairs that had never seen a proper lawn.

“I don’t know if I’m staying in New York,” Starsky found himself saying.

Hutch straightened up. “Oh?”

“Yeah, I’m thinking of going somewhere else.” He hadn’t even admitted this in his own head before now. It seemed sacrilegious to not want to go home from a war. “I’ll go see my ma and my brother and my friends, but there’s not much else to go back to, you know?”

“Yeah,” Hutch said quietly after a moment. “I know what you mean.”

“Maybe—” Starsky wanted to light up another cigarette, just for something to do with his hands. “I don’t know, maybe you could come with me. You’re going, I’m going, maybe we should go together. Battle buddies.” He shut up before he could say anything else idiotic.

Rubbing his chin, Hutch huffed out a silent chuckle. “What, really? You mean it?”

The denial was in his mouth when Starsky saw that Hutch was looking at him like he did sometimes; like Starsky had done something amazing and wonderful, though he’d only been his usual self, the guy who got voted class clown of the Class of ’61 only half on purpose. Almost as scared to see that look as he craved it, he nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

“Okay.” Hutch laughed breathlessly, “Okay, let’s do it. Me and thee—I mean, you and me. Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know,” Starsky said, all of a sudden thrilling and overfull with energy. “What’s that, me and thee?”

Hutch pretended not to hear him, though the tips of his ears were very obviously turning red. “Alaska seemed nice from what I saw on the flight over.”

Starsky was disgusted and delighted in equal measure. “Fuck, no. That’s too cold. I’m not living in the snow six months of the year.”

“You’d never make it in Minnesota.”

“Good thing you’re not going home, then. Come on!” He pulled his feet up onto the seat and clasped his hands expectantly on his knees. “Where are we going? And for my sake, somewhere south of the tundra, please.”

“Well, it’s real warm here,” Hutch said mock thoughtfully, but not able to maintain the deadpan demeanor he usually did. He grinned like he was feeling as giddy as Starsky did. “Alright, why don’t you think of somewhere?”

“California. Isn’t that where people go? San Francisco was pretty cool.” He’d only been there sixteen hours and slept through five of them, but it had seemed like a fun city. Living there hadn’t crossed his mind at the time. It might turn out to be too expensive, but maybe not if they split the rent.

Hutch looked stunned and then gave Starsky that look again, searing him down to his toes. “Okay, San Francisco. I like that. How about this? We get out, we go home for a while, see our families, and then we meet up in San Francisco, figure it out from there.”

“How long is a while?” He didn’t want to wait too long before seeing Hutch again. Starsky might have been willing to leave New York and live on his own, but he would rather have a partner waiting for him.

“I don’t know. How long do you think it should be?”

“How about a month? My mother should be happy to see me move out of her house by then.”

Decided, Hutch nodded once. “Four weeks after we get back, San Francisco.” He held up a finger in warning. “Don’t stand me up, Starsky.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you. Me and thee, remember?” Starsky laughed at Hutch’s renewed flush and tipped off his chair and onto his knees in the scrubby grass to put his arm around Hutch’s shoulders. “What does that mean, anyway?”

“Nothing. It just means what it sounds like.”

“Like partners?” Starsky guessed. Hutch’s arm was stickily hot against his chest but he didn’t pull away. “Battle buddies without the battle part?”

“Or with it, if we need to.” He pulled his arm out from between them and put it around Starsky. They were way too close for as hot as it was, but the weight on his neck was better than a breeze. The intensity of Hutch’s gaze was both serious and affectionate. “It means you and me against the world.”

Him and Hutch; Starsky liked the sound of that.

* * *

The end of their draft tours came, and Hutch managed to get them orders for the same flight out. They had a day and a half in Japan on their way home. Fifty degrees in Tokyo felt like the first crisp day of autumn after the summer doldrums. Starsky showered in a real bathroom and finally felt clean after more than a year of constant sweating. He had the deepest tan of his life and his reflection looked strange with his dog tags off.

They’d gotten hotel rooms instead of staying in the barracks, tempted by the foreign luxury of actual privacy. Still, he felt relieved when Hutch came to his room, hair still damp from the shower. He looked bizarre in a red civilian shirt with only one button closed over his undershirt.

“Wow, blintz, you look like a real person.”

“You look less like a wild poodle.” Hutch scrubbed his hand through Starsky’s hair. “Oh, never mind.”

Starsky fussed over fixing it more than he needed to, partially because he had finally broken in the brush he had bought before heading to basic. He liked the feeling of the bristles on his scalp and Hutch’s warm gaze on him in the mirror. It made him ramble a bit.

“I thought I’d go out to dinner and then maybe dancing with the WACs. Want to come?” He looked over when Hutch didn’t answer.

Seemingly taken aback, Hutch cleared his throat. “I guess I could eat.”

“You won’t come dancing?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. You really want to do that now, first night basically out of the Army?”

“After dinner, I said.” Deeply confused, Starsky turned around. “What, do you want to do something else?”

“No, we can go dancing after dinner.” He straightened away from the wall, checking his watch. “Actually, it works out better that way.”

“What does?” Starsky managed to demand in exasperation before Hutch kissed him.

Hutch was kissing him. Starsky hadn’t kissed anybody but girls since he and Ricky and Tommy were eleven, trying to figure out if what Tommy said about tongue kissing was true. You were supposed to grow out of that sort of thing once you could get girls. When you started shaving, Ricky had said was the rule. You were a real queer if you still kissed other boys after that. Starsky had abided by it, and since he liked girls, he hadn’t thought much about it. He definitely hadn’t planned on breaking it for some sweet lieutenant, no matter how prettily Hutch seemed to look at him sometimes.

Maybe Hutch hadn’t had a friend to tell him the rule, like he didn’t have family writing him while he was overseas. Starsky should have told him they were too old to be kissing, but he didn’t. He didn’t _feel_ like he’d grown out of it. Hutch was holding his head in one big hand, the curve of his palm settled against Starsky’s jaw and fingertips pressed into the nape of his neck. Hutch didn’t seem to know where to put his other hand, going first to the place where a woman would curve at the waist and then to the small of Starsky’s back, elbow sticking out awkwardly. Starsky had known he was strong for a string bean, but it was a revelation to feel the muscle in Hutch’s arms and back as they worked out how to fit together in a new way. Starsky liked the way they fit. The shape of Hutch was as steady and assured as his character.

They were both hard, and soon distracted by the enjoyable pressure of pressing their hips together. Hutch squeezed the back of his neck before steering him to sit on the narrow bed. He was pink-cheeked and pleased, maybe a little smug if Starsky looked half as dazed as he felt. Even after the effort Starsky had put into it, Hutch’s hair was too short and too fine to look properly mussed.

“I know it’s risky here, but I didn’t want to wait anymore.”

Starsky could understand that. If you had decided to break a rule, there was rarely a point in dithering. And if Hutch had waited for him to make the first move, it might never have happened. He hadn’t realized he had been holding himself back before. Already, Starsky couldn’t imagine not kissing Hutch. It should have been stranger and more frightening to change the direction of his life this suddenly, but Starsky thought he might have already turned that way without knowing it. Before the kiss, he had already chosen not to go back to a life that didn’t have Hutch in it. He hadn’t imagined this only because he hadn’t allowed himself to think too long about the inviting shape of Hutch’s mouth, or how he shivered in 100º heat when Hutch put his hands on him. Starsky hadn’t put a stop to their constant touching. What he had done instead, he realized in hindsight, was invite Hutch to run away with him to San Francisco.

He wasn’t about to question the rightness of something that they had figured out on instinct. Not when it felt so good.

Starsky scooted further up the bed, pulling Hutch with him and then down onto him. They had figured out kissing already, though he hadn’t been prepared for it at all. He didn’t know what was coming, let alone feel ready for it, but he was confident they’d be able to work out the rest.

Feeling Hutch unbuttoning his pants sent a jolt of electric heat down his spine. Starsky wriggled them down his thighs eagerly and pushed Hutch’s shirt off his shoulders. Hutch slid his hand underneath Starsky’s undershirt, his light touch teasing up his belly and then pressing down. Starsky was pinned in place, by arousal as much as the hand spread over his ribs, excited for whatever Hutch intended to do next.

“I’m going to suck your cock.”

Starsky nearly came from that announcement and Hutch touching him through his underwear. His hand felt fucking huge. Starsky made a desperate sound as Hutch let go and exposed him. He looked at Starsky’s naked cock with a combination of awe and the same analytical focus he directed toward working out duty assignments. Hutch never started anything without a good mind to finish it. Starsky gripped the sheets until his knuckles hurt.

“Have you done this before?”

“No.” Hutch touched the inner part of his thigh and hip where Starsky’s skin was pulled thin and vulnerable. Starsky shivered and spread his knees as wide as he could in the constraints of his pants. Hutch inhaled sharply. “Is that—do you mind?”

“No,” Starsky said, delirious. “Not if you start right now.”

“So impatient.”

But Hutch apparently couldn’t wait either, already taking Starsky’s cock gently in hand. He dragged open kisses up the shaft before lifting it away from his stomach and taking it in his mouth. Starsky had to bite down on his fist to keep quiet. He couldn’t do anything to stop shifting restlessly, chasing more sensation. Hutch’s eyes were closed at first as he seemed to work out what he could do, then he looked up, gaze hungry even with his mouth full.

Starsky watched in stunned fascination, both unable to look away from what was happening and imagining how he would look to Hutch if their positions were reversed. He could do it, Starsky realized; he _wanted_ to do it. He wanted to suck Hutch’s cock. And Hutch would let him and never think less of him for it. They could keep going back and forth as long as they wanted, even try other things. There were more ways of having sex that they could explore together. _Of course_ they matched each other in bed as they did in all other places.

Starsky came with a choked cry. Unprepared for it, Hutch pulled off. He was panting and dripping spunk down his chin as he watched Starsky shoot, scrambling to get his own cock out. Too eager even to pull his pants down, Hutch jerked himself through his open flies. He started fucking into his fist as he got close and then came all over Starsky’s spread thighs. Starsky swore, nearly pained from a new bolt of lust so soon after his orgasm.

“Hutch. God, Hutch, you were so good. That felt so good.”

“Not bad for a beginner, huh? Fuck, I wanted that.” Hutch swiped the back of his hand across his chin, not doing much for the mess there. “You sounded like you were dying, Starsk, and I was killing you. That sounds crazy, but you got me so hard. I have to suck you again somewhere we don’t have to worry about the noise.”

The taste of himself on Hutch’s lips gave him a second jolt.

Too soon, Hutch said, “Come on, get cleaned up so we can go find somewhere to eat. I’m starved.”

Starsky was, too. Sex always made him hungry and energetic. He still resisted getting out of bed, pouting until Hutch wiped the spunk out of his body hair for him. Hutch couldn’t mind that much, because his hands lingered and he let Starsky steal as many kisses as he wanted. Starsky had never been more certain that he would get a second date.

“As much as I would like to, we can’t stay in bed all day.” Hutch slapped his ass playfully and went to put his shirt back on. “Even if there was room service, we shouldn’t scandalize the bellhop.”

“Alright, alright already!” Starsky set his clothes right, changing his shirt and tossing the stained one on top of his duffel, then tackled his prodigious bedhead. “As long as it’s cooked, I’m okay with whatever.”

“We’re in Japan, Starsky. If you aren’t going to eat sushi here, where are you going to eat it?”

“Nowhere, if I can help it. You can have it if you want, but don’t think I’ll be kissing you tonight if you get food poisoning.”

Hutch sat against the bathroom counter right next to him and crossed his arms and ankles. “Oh, are we going to be kissing tonight? What happened to dancing with the WACs? I wanted to see if you’re as smooth as you bragged you were.”

“And I can’t wait to prove it to you. We worked out the plan, remember?”

Starsky turned around and leaned against the counter next to Hutch to list the steps on his fingers. “We get dinner, and as long as they have an oven, you can pick the place. We head over to the USO club so I can show you and every other farm boy out here how to groove. Then we leave all the girls heartbroken from the loss of my light feet and your baby blues, pick up some sake on the way back here, and head up to your room for a nightcap.” He knocked his shoulder against Hutch’s and winked. “You’re too much of a pal to kick me out if I fall asleep there, aren’t you?”

Nodding and frowning with faux seriousness, Hutch played along. “We have an early flight, I know you need your sleep. Besides, I was passed out, too.”

“No harm in a couple Army stiffs loosening up on their way back home.”

“And if they wake up completely un-hungover, well,” Hutch shrugged. His eyes darted down to Starsky’s mouth, then he looked up with a slow smile. “It couldn’t have happened to two more wholesome, honest guys.”

“You read my mind, blintz.”

He wanted to kiss Hutch again, but he would wait until after dinner and dancing, when they would be hot and loose-limbed and buzzing for each other. Hutch would probably have sushi and Starsky would pretend to avoid him at first, and then he would kiss all the way from Hutch’s mouth down his chest to his cock. Then he would figure out how to give a blow job. It didn’t seem difficult, but he wanted to be the best of Hutch’s life. Not that he would do it perfect on the first try, but Starsky would start the endeavor with that goal in mind. Not kissing now would only add to the anticipation later.

So he jumped up and led the way to the door. He gave Hutch’s hair and clothes one last look to see that they weren’t rumpled, then waved him through first.

They couldn’t hold hands, but their elbows knocked together in the narrow hallway, and even outside, they didn’t separate.

* * *

They didn’t really talk about the war afterwards. Vietnam, for Starsky, was a funny collection of things he had experienced that were, on the whole, more pleasant and beautiful than terrible. It would be disrespectful to reminisce fondly about something that stole so much from so many others. Ricky could and did talk about it all the time because he hated it and it ruined his hand; he had earned it. Starsky and Hutch didn’t, because they hadn’t. Starsky put his dog tags away, deep in a drawer with the single pearl in its velvet pouch, exchanging it for the pictures in frames on the side table and a hairbrush left casually on the counter in a bathroom that was his alone. Hutch had left his tags with his parents.

And of course, the most beautiful thing in Vietnam, the one he got to bring home with him against all odds, was also the part of his life he couldn’t ever talk about anyway. They met in San Francisco and went dancing together four times at an underground gay club it had taken Hutch two weeks to find. They decided on the police force, since it suited their skills and temperaments and would let them work together. It was too risky to do in San Francisco, where someone might recognize them from the gay club, so they went farther south to Bay City. They kept separate apartments and kept dating women casually, in exchange for working together and the intimacy of touching each other in public. Hutch preferred to watch Starsky dance rather than participate, anyway. It was a good life.

In a way, it was lucky that the war became so unpopular that people stopped talking about it and asking if they had served. Starsky had hated the war. He still felt sick to think of his squadmates ambushed and executed trying to deliver canned fruit and vegetables, and to see every day on his beat the kids who came back alive only to bury themselves in drugs to forget. But Starsky couldn’t hate Vietnam. Though he never talked about it, Starsky cherished the memories of his time in the Army. Dreams of sharing their letters from home over melting ice cream sandwiches only reminded Starsky to call Ricky and catch up on the old neighborhood’s gossip. He remembered watching the sunsets and hearing the racket of all the birds and the bugs in the jungle, like they were arguing with the sky over who had the most dazzling colors. He had met Hutch there.

Hutch didn’t talk about Vietnam either, but Starsky knew he remembered. Every year around the anniversary of their discharge, Hutch hid a sachet holding a lumpy pearl around his apartment for Starsky to find. Before he tucked each new pearl away in his drawer, Starsky took them all out for what Hutch called his goblin time. Starsky objected to that characterization on principle, even if it wasn’t a million miles off the mark. He arranged and rearranged his collection to see how their pale colors compared, and rolled them around his palm to hear them clicking and rubbing against each other like marbles.

“You know, most people have to wait for their thirtieth anniversary to get pearls.”

“Yeah, you’re a sucker who goes big fast, I know.” Starsky already had to use both hands to hold his collection. “Maybe that’s when I’ll get _you_ pearls.”

Hutch made a face. “I don’t have the coloring for pearls.”

“Not even the pink and blue ones?”

“I’m not easy like you, Starsk. I won’t settle for anything less than diamonds.”

Leaving his pearls on the floor, Starsky climbed onto Hutch’s lap. Hutch settled his hands on Starsky’s hips, the touch as familiar and easy as breathing by now. “Maybe by then I’ll be able to afford diamonds.”

Humming like he was skeptical but willing to let Starsky think what he wanted, Hutch tipped his face up for a kiss. Not being an idiot, Starsky gave it to him. Privately, he thought diamonds might be nice, but Hutch looked better in color. He’d get him sapphires or emeralds. Or maybe a more modern stone, something Hutch could actually wear in public. Just the idea of it felt amazing, and Starsky immediately resolved to ask Huggy if he knew a guy as soon as possible. It wouldn’t be quite the same gesture as saving up for diamonds, but Hutch would get it. They’d have time to get around to diamonds later.


End file.
